Only some hefty restructuring over the past year has stemmed terminal maker Boundless Corp’s downhill slide, and the company has reported a fairly small profit as opposed to losses last year, as a result. Boundless, formerly Sun River Corp, has seen sales of its traditional text-based terminals decline in line with market trends, but in 1996 text-based terminals still accounted for some 80% of its business. The company has undergone several changes at the top over the past year or so, and has cut costs and headcount considerably (CI No 3,248), enabling it to turn in profits of $540,000 against losses last time of $1.2m, on revenue that fell 16.5% to $24.3m. However, its main aim now is to turn itself into a thin client Network Computer company and that will be no mean task. The company’s Viewpoint TC family of second generation Network Computers are its main hope and it signed a deal with NCR Corp last month which will see NCR re- badging the Viewpoint and selling it as the NCR TC 2990 (CI No 3,253). Nevertheless, last year NCR already accounted for 14% of Boundless’ revenue, with Digital Equipment Corp accounting for 16%. Boundless’ main hope is to encourage its existing user base of some five million text terminals, onto the Network Computer. It says over the coming months it will launch new products, including the Viewpoint TC Model 100 a network terminal which will enable its existing users to migrate to thin-client computing. However, it is the speed with which it might achieve this that is of the essence if it is to reverse its fortunes and halt the decline in its revenues.
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